Monday, March 22, 1976

On Mary Backstayge, the gang is at La Scala, discussing La Traviata
Next Episode: https://archive.org/details/BnR79403231976

0:00 - Intro by Roger Skibenes, then Widen Your Horizons with guest Quentin L. Farber of the Volunteer's Council For Consumer Protection, who teaches how to count your pocket change.

5:00 - On Mary Backstayge, Noble Wife, Mary is still missing, but rehearsals and set construction for La Traviata continue.  Pops Beloved will stand in for Mary, in the role of Violetta.

9:00 - The Emergency Ward, brought to you by the US Mint.  With the insight only available to a highly trained medical professional, Dr. Gerhardt Snutton determines that a patient has an apple growing out of his nose.

13:00 - The posing of the musical question 'Are You Having Any Fun?', by the British mid-century comedy duo Flanagan & Allen.

15:40 - A pre-recorded commercial for canned Montini Tomatoes, with a tag by Bob Elliott.

16:45 - A traffic report from Helicopter 710, then Ray reads train cancellations.

17:50 - On Squad Car 119, the officers discuss paycheque deductions, and contemplate investigating a nude man in a tree.

21:35 - Bob & Ray are reintroduced, then Commander Neville Putney brings us a spell-binding episode of Anxiety, well designed to keep you there-in.  Two American soldiers find themselves on the wrong side of enemy lines, or not.

26:05 - On The Gathering Dusk, Miss Bessinger receives a visit from the town's guru and interpreter of the occult, whom she hopes will help to get the spirit of Curt Gowdy off her back.

30:50 - Comedian and impressionist Guy Marks' 1968 recording Loving You Has Made Me Bananas, a parody of 1930s-vintage big-band remotes and the sentimental songs of the era.  This version seems embellished by several of Bob & Ray's standard sound effects.

33:40 - Traffic and subway updates, news headlines, and a pre-recorded commercial for Western Union Mail-Grams which, bearing an uncanny resemblance to email, can be delivered by computer for only a dollar.

35:10 - Dr. Elmer Stapley, The Word Wizard, helps the listener to improvise their grammar and expanse their vocabulary.

38:40 - This Place For Heroes introduces small-town newspaper editor Fred John Wassell, who tells of his fight against mob-controlled jukeboxes, the mob that controls them, and the progress of his recovery.

42:15 - Audience member Leopold Nodel, professional racket-maker, is interviewed.

45:35 - The closing of the show, and what's coming up on WOR later tonight.

Annotated by Harry Wilson



Reviewer: Dean Archer Armstead II - - January 20, 2017
Subject: Thanks for posting this and the programs that will follow. They are a long time coming. And they wouldn’t be here at all except for the enormous efforts of Greybelt. Allow me a couple paragraphs of background.

Back when we were callow youths, Greybelt and I (he wasn’t so grey at the time) were OTR collectors swapping reel tapes by mail. In 1976 I worked for a radio station in the Pacific Northwest and B&R were my radio heroes. I was quite jealous that Greybelt lived in the NYC area and could actually hear them daily on WOR. Somehow I prevailed upon him to tape the shows and send them to me. This was likely part of some trade were worked up that neither of us can remember. He did a sterling job of taping their entire program each day (over a roughly two month period) then periodically sending the unedited tapes to me. Since we were both pretty poor, tape and postage costs were an issue. It was beyond our financial capacity to save all the original airchecks. I edited these the programs down and we then re-cycled the tapes back into our taping regimen to save on expenses.

To manage the many hours of content, large blocks of news and non-B&R content was necessarily removed. But some of this remains intact (commercials, promos, station ID’s, traffic, etc;) because I wanted these to sound like radio shows. Not just collections of routines. Bob & Ray were working radio guys first and foremost, and I hope these shows reflect that.

About 24 dates survive from this project. I digitized a few of these many years ago. But defunct reel to reel machines (and life in general) almost derailed doing the rest. They would never have seen the light of day if not for Greybelt. We re-connected a couple years ago. We are still on opposite coasts (and yes, we are still avid OTR buffs). Recently he generously offered to finish the job I failed to complete and this is part of the result. While some of the bits may have been taped and circulated by other fans, they haven’t been available in this form.

So, after a brief 40 year delay, here they are for all to listen to. Bob & Ray, the Two and Only circa ’76.

Dean Archer Armstead II

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